In your skin
by VervainAndRoses
Summary: This is not a goodbye but a see you later.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Inspired by the Spanish song "Llevame" (Carry Me) by Dulce Maria. Memories are in italics.

* * *

Nothing will erase the memories.  
Today is not the end,  
This story is tattooed on time.

With a smile and tears  
I say forget me not.

You taught me not to lose faith  
To overcome the fear of falling  
and, now I will live in freedom.

I will always be near you,  
Search and you'll find me.

Nothing will erase the memories  
In your heart.  
This is not a goodbye but a see you later.

X

"_You know…it seems a bit ominous to sing American Pie before a high risk mission" she told him, only half joking._

"_We'll be fine Nat, aren't we always?" He said, his grey eyes sparkling with mischief. They just hit their year as partners, and to mark the occasion (or so he convinced her she should) she allowed him the nickname. _

"_This will be the day that I die…" His melodious voice continued singing until they had to strap on their parachutes and jump from the plane to a deserted plain in Syria._

_X_

She saw it before she felt it, practically in slow motion, the smoke that left the gun as the bullet raced across the field and sunk deep into her chest from the side. Her vest couldn't protect her there; as it had been ripped from a hand to hand fight minutes before. There was already a knife wound, blood flowing freely. The man must've taken notice and shot.

She'd been shot before, countless times. And before she worked for Shield, before she had Clint or the medics to fix her up. She had dug bullets out of her body with knifes, patche herself up with Vodka and ripped T-shirts.

But the pain, it was as if this was the first time. As if she was a child again, only 11 years old and standing in a deserted street in the slums of Stalingrad. Performing her first assignment and failing to notice a man sneaking behind her, and shooting her leg.

The burning pain washes through her, swallowing her whole. And she barely can hear Clint shouting above all the gunfire "_Natasha!_"

She goes under.

X

"_Do you even have enough rank to make that proposition, boy?" she says, intentionally making a quip at his youthful looks. Even if she was younger than him, herself._

"_You can come back with me, or you can stay back and continue living like this. All I know is it's a choice, and you have it. Does that happen to you very often?" He said, lowering his bow._

_He was right, but she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing. There more men outside than she could take on alone, and if going with him to America was the only choice besides certain death. What her choice would be was pretty clear. It was survival instinct, she rationalized, and not a wish for accompanying the grey-eyed man and seeing for herself if there was such a thing as hope for a creature as lost as her._

_X_

When she opens her eyes again, everything seems eerily quiet.

"That's right, sweetheart…. just stay awake" She hears Clints voice and looks up to find him staring at her. "Help's on its way."

"What… happened?" she tried to get out, the blood in her mouth unrelenting and making it hard to breathe.

"You got shot and passed out." He answers her, her foggy mind recounting the event. "You're going to be fine. The pick up team's coming." He brushed loose strands of hair from her face "You just need to stay awake a little longer. Can you do that for me, Tasha?"

X

"_Don't you dare pull a stunt like that again, you hear me? Ne__ver!" She screamed at him when they were back at their safe house, nervous hands running through her hair "Fuck, Clint!"_

_She passed back and forth, trying to get clear her mind. She almost never lost her calmness. But this? He took a bullet for her. They've been partners for 3 years and he took a fucking bullet for her. He was wearing Kevlar , and the only mark was a bruise, but the act….the act just threw her. He took a bullet that was meant for her. She saw him fall, felt her chest constrict at the mere possibility that she would… What was he thinking?!_

_She asks him that much, and then she is in his arms, and his calloused fingers were the ones tangled in her blood-red hair, his hands hugging her closer to his body, a string of "I thought I would lose you, Nat…" whispered by him like a prayer._

_X_

Only now it was really happening.

She'd inflicted this kind of pain in others, a thousand times. She tried to breath in and choked in her own blood, as she'd made others do in countless missions. She knew what it meant, her lung was filling up with blood. She had maybe a couple of minutes left. Not enough to be saved. Not enough for saying goodbye.

It only seemed fitting for her to die this way. Karma really was a bitch, but a fair one at that. Staying awake was becoming harder by the second.

But Clint was here, holding her. Once more being her lifeline, the only thing she could try and hold on to. She always did count on him. To watch her back, help her; bring her back from the edge if she tumbled too close, to love her. Just like she loved him.

Now she could admit, couldn't she? She was dying anyway; she might as well be honest with herself. Looking up into his grey-blue eyes, she remembers the first time she realized she loved him. Even if she'd denied it all along.

X

_It took her 3 and half years of partnership, 2 bottles of the best Russian vodka, and him being shot and under a coma for almost a week. She didn't sleep, didn't eat, and was as dead inside as he looked on the outside. _

_Natasha stood by his bedside like any partner would even though the almost flesh memory of loosing someone she loved made her choke. Made her want to bolt from the room. But she stayed, and though she would never admit it to anybody, she cried. Tears silently slipping down her face, with only one thought running through her mind. Don't you fucking dare do this to me, Barton._

_And 2 days later, when he opened his eyes again, she swears denim blue became her favorite color. _

_X_

"Tash..…hey, stay with me….c'mon… Nat!" she faintly felt his fingers caressing her cheek, but it was fading, it all was. "Open your eyes beautiful…" He whispered and she tried to, she did. One last thing to give him, when he'd given her so much that she could never quite feel like she repaid him.

She looks up now, not feeling the roughness of the floor she was lying on, nor the pain in her side where she's pretty sure the bullet punctured her lung. The room is fading; black borders tinting her vision and closing in. All she can see is her favorite color.

X

"_Don`t leave a man like this Natasha…" he said as__ she rose up from the bed they were sharing just moments before._

_The last thing she wanted to do was leave. But having sex with him was one thing and staying in his arms afterwards a world of difference apart. She knew how dangerous it could be, how her wall already cracked a bit as she caved in and decided taking him as a lover 4 months ago. _

_It would be too risky to stay, to get comfortable having his muscular arms surrounding her and his breath warm in her neck. She didn't do cuddly. _

"_Just because we're sleeping together doesn't mean you get to use me as your teddy bear." She answered him and stood up, only to be pulled back into bed by the archer's arms and pinned down underneath him._

"_You're more of a doll, darlin'" he said, as he convinced her yet again to cave in, his lips coaxing her way better than his words could._

_X_

"You know how I love it when you look at me." he says, through the tears, "Look at me, Tasha. C'mon." He cradles her face in his hand, trying to keep her focused while her eyes took on a faraway look.

She's tired, oh so tired. And it's not painful anymore, it's oddly comforting to be here in Clint's arms, where she always felt the safest. Something breaks her calmness, though, and she's confused by the rain hitting her forehead.

He brushes loose strands of hair from her face with his free hand, the hand not trying to keep more blood from spilling from her. She realizes the water's coming from his eyes.

_Don't cry for me_, she wants to say but knows its too late, she cant_. I love you_, she wants to say for the first time. Because she never did, why did she never say it? Why didn't she whisper it back after he said to her, holding her to his body at night? _You saved my life, I owe you everything, I'm sorry, don't cry. __**I love you**__._

She tries to reach up with her hand, caress his cheek one last time, but she is too weak to do anything but try to breath. He notices her struggle and holds her hand up to his face, turning and kissing her wrist. "It's ok, I know" He says, and she's again surprised at how well he can read her. It bothered her at the beginning but she's come to rely on their connection so much.

"Don't go to sleep on me, Nat." He says, and his voice is so full of pain it breaks something deep within her. But she's tired and she feels weightless, and she can't help the way her eyes close as she coughs up blood one last time.

He pats her cheek softly, willing her to come back to her senses.

"Nat…I love you, you hear me? ... I need you." She fights the darkness like she fought so many beside him; she tries to feel his arms around her. "I can't do this without you, Natasha." She knows this is true; she wouldn't be able to keep working without him by her side either. Without her faithful hawk watching over her. But now she's going to watch over him.

She hasn't seen her whole life pass before her eyes yet, but everything she can remember has him in it. Everything worthwhile had him by her side. She hasn't seen her life pass before her eyes but she's staring into his as she goes, and there's really no difference.

X

You helped build my wings

And now its time to fly

_Carry me in your skin_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Inspired by the song "Firewood" by Regina Spektor. The story was intended to be a one-shot, but it stuck with me. So I wrote how Clint dealed with everything that happened afterwards. The words in italics are Clint's thoughts/words to Natasha (and who knows, maybe she's listening).

* * *

Don't look so shocked  
Don't judge so harsh  
You don't know you're only spying  
Everyone knows it's going to hurt  
But at least we'll get hurt trying

The piano is not firewood yet  
But a heart can't be helped  
And it gathers regret  
Someday you'll wake up and feel a great pain  
And you'll miss every toy you've ever owned

You'll want to go back  
You'll wish you were small  
Nothing will console your crying  
You'll take the clock off of your wall  
And you'll wish it was lying

X

Natasha

I can let myself think of her now, half drunk. It hurts less.

She was an angel, she was. And she smoked when she was nervous (That happened once or twice the whole time I knew her). And I knew her for almost 10 years. Half that time was spent gaining her trust and becoming her friend, and the other half…man, I miss her.

I remember I made her pancakes and spaghetti and soup, because she couldn't cook to save her life (except for that one Russian dessert that always came out perfect).

She put up a fight when I tried to hold her at night. (_I'm not your teddy bear_) I always won though, and when I woke up she was still nestled in my arms, her head on my chest.

She would wake up in that quiet way of hers, notice I was staring and say something along the lines of "_Stop creeping, Barton_." But she didn't try to move.

I loved her.

I still do and the past tense breaks my heart. I'll never get used to it. She is, she'll always be. Here, mine. Moe serdtse.

She was beautiful, so beautiful. Her green eyes shined when she saw me after a solo mission even when she insisted it was jus a trick of the light. She did everything beautifully, too. The way she danced with me, the way we made love and how she talked. Her voice when she sang old Russian lullabies… (I never quite understood them, even knowing the language).

Her laugh, so melodious and rare, that resonated in my apartment the few times I managed to elicit it out of her.

I still think I hear her laughing, at night. Maybe she is with me still, somehow. Or maybe I'm just going crazy.

The bed's cold and empty now, her warm body next to mine for so long that sometimes I'll still wake up and call out "Tasha", thinking she just had another nightmare and went to make tea.

We shared our nightmares. She told me about the Red Room, about being forced to kill when she was 7, about the officer that slipped into her bedroom when she was 11 (she killed him the next night, her thighs breaking his neck) and I told her about my parents and my brother, the swordsman in the circus and Loki, I told her everything. She was everything.

There it is, that fucking past tense, reminding me I'm alone now.

Phil's gone, and now Nat's two. And the Avengers may call every other week to ask me how I'm doing but it's not the same thing. I'm alone. She was my only family.

Tasha would be ashamed of me right now, sitting on the floor in my boxers, with a bottle of vodka in my hands. _Her_ vodka. The real, hard stuff she imported from Russia (because _Russian is always better, Clint, don't argue_)

I take another swing of the bottle and relish its burn down my chest. The last days _hell_ the last weeks, had been a nightmare. Either feeling too much or feeling nothing at all. The first was overwhelming pain, because _Natasha, fuck, this is a mess…_the second was a numbness that still hurt but at least let me breath without feeling the scent of her hair.

I always loved her hair. Natural redhead she was (got angry when people thought she dyed it) but it was such a rich, deep red that one couldn't help but wonder. It was the color of blood. (Like the one that trickled from her mouth as she died, with me holding her)

I often wonder if I could've done more. (_The bullet was lodged in her lung, Clint, there was nothing you could've done)_ But, fuck, that doesn't make me feel better. Nothing will, not anymore.

X

_Tasha, where are you?_

_Can you see me acting like an asshole? Crying for you in the kitchen floor of my old apartment._

_There's still a drawer of your clothes here, Nat. I can't throw them away._

_X_

Natasha said keeping clothes here would practical, but I saw her eyes when she noticed I emptied a drawer for her.

I remember when I told her _to just move in, you already live here anyway._

I told her I loved her that night when we made love, and she didn't say it back. But also didn't leave, in fact her arms tightened around my chest. And I knew.

X

_I was your family too, wasn't I, Natasha? _

_Yeah…we were family, sweetheart._

_You were my everything._

_X_

The bottle is empty now, and I throw it against the kitchen table, watching it break in pieces. One lodges itself in my leg and blood trickles down. But I can't feel the pain, not that one anyway. All I can notice it's the blood being the color of her hair. All I can feel is the pain that started somewhere in my heart 2 months ago, and now has spread to the rest of my body. Crippling me with grieve.

I need to stop thinking she will walk through the door again one day, her hair tousled and a scratch on her cheek but never more beautiful. She looks like a goddess after missions, I mean, she looked.

There has to be another bottle of vodka around here, but I probably won't find, Tasha was crafty with her alcohol.

At least I know she left like she always wanted to, in the thick of the fight. She always told me dying in a hospital would be a shame. She wanted to go down fighting, and she did, at the end. Life without her may be meaning less and lonely but I'm still breathing (barely), I'm still an agent. And I'm supposed to move on and do my job (how do you move on when someone took a piece of you with them?)

Tomorrow I have to leave for a high-risk mission (damn I shouldn't be drinking). It's a hard job; it would've been so easy if she was here, though. And Fury was hesitant of sending me in, but I convinced him I was fine (I learned to lie from the best).

So who knows? Maybe I'll catch up to her.

Natasha always ran faster than me.

X

_Everyone knows you're going to love  
Though there's still no cure for crying_


End file.
